Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #16

Joss Whedon re-teams with Karl Moline, artist of the original Fray miniseries, for the character’s return. As Dawn’s transformation takes a new form, the Wiccan squad in Manhattan detects a strange temporal anomaly, a sort of “reverse-echo” bouncing back to the present day from some point in the future. As Buffy and the gang investigate, Buffy finds herself face-to-face with a warrior girl from a different time. The Fray miniseries (which featured a slayer from the distant future) was a fan favorite, and seeing her return here in such a way as to interact with the rest of Buffy’s world is a lot of fun. Dawn’s storyline continues to be intriguing, and there’s a strange bit of progression for Xander here as well. I must say, I’m not really certain where Whedon is planning to go with this character, but as the series approaches the halfway point, we can expect things to get a lot stranger before they calm down. This series continues to feel like a strong, natural way to progress these characters, even as Whedon and company take advantage of the comic book format. We probably never would have — or could have — seen this story on the TV show, but it certainly feels like it belongs to that universe.Rating: 4/5